Tritheism

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Tritheism describes a three-god belief. The term is initially used within Christianity to criticize a theology of the Trinity , which weights the trinity of God more than his unity. On the other hand, tritheism also describes the general criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity. The criticism in the Koran refers to a special form of the Trinity , a kind of family made up of God the Father, Jesus Christ ( son ) and Mary (mother), which is not represented in this form today.

According to Mühling and Moltmann , it is a polemical term that is used to conceal one's own modalism . The following people were accused of tritheism: John Philoponos ( Third Council of Byzantium ). In the Middle Ages Roscelin von Compiègne , Joachim von Fiore ( IV Lateran Council ), in the 19th century against Anton Günther , Ernst Sartorius and in the 20th century against Jürgen Moltmann and Richard Swinburne .

The tritheism of the early Middle Ages was essentially based on Johannes Asotzanges , who in Constantinople in the year 557 combined the doctrine of two natures with the doctrine of the Trinity with regard to God and Christ . According to this, there were three beings, three substances, three natures in God. Tritheism aroused fierce resistance in the Monophysite churches in the Eastern Roman Empire as the "three gods belief". The Syrian Orthodox Christians and Jakob Baradai († 578) fought tritheism.

In the anti- trinitarianism of the Reformation , too, tritheistic points of view emerged. Matteo Gribaldi and Giovanni Valentino Gentile , among others, spoke out in favor of subordinate tritheism. Christian Unitarianism later developed from the theology formulated by Gribaldi .

literature

  • Wassilios Klein (Ed.): Syrian Church Fathers (= Urban Tb 587) . Stuttgart 2004, p. 196f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Mühling:  Tritheism . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 8, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, Sp. 0.
  2. ↑ Markus Mühling:  Tritheism . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 8, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, Sp. 0.
  3. ↑ Antitrinitarians. European History Online (EGO), accessed October 4, 2011 .